Beasts within men can swim out of a bottle. That's what happened to Tyrell Gruin, a drunk and disgruntled DSHS worker that decided to visit my kid's elementary school. Dreads had heard the howls of the madman and known the migration of the bottled beast. Dreads had bound over the fence and followed.

The day became one of long hours and terror. My heart nearly stopped at the sight of my child getting murdered in front of me. They say that every dog has his day, but it seems they are referring to the behavior of men. A man that we would call a dog is not a good man, not a good boy.

Dreads was a good boy, a purebred Alsatian and a gift from Uncle Richter. He had played with and loved my family for six years. He rarely barked and was a gentle animal, considering his monstrous natural abilities. One of those abilities was to know the route my kid walked to get to school and he followed, the scent making his tail wag. Dreads had always wanted to go to school, but good boys stay in the yard and would never jump the fence.

Dreads was supposed to come back inside after using the yard. I had heard the disturbance and looked out the window. I saw my dog go over the fence. I saved my work and turned my wheelchair so I could see what was happening. My dog following some crazy drunk guy who was holding a knife until they vanished around the corner.

Worried at my dog's behavior, I took a break from my work and followed him out into the streets, wheeling myself along and calling to him. He was much faster than me as I struggled to keep up in my wheelchair. I lost sight of him, heard police sirens and forgot my dog when I arrived at the school, moments after two police cars with their lights on. I was told to stay back, that there was an incident. That my kid was in the school did not matter. The place was on lock down.

As the classrooms were evacuated more police arrived. With terror in my eyes I stared, clearly seeing that it was my own child's class that was still in the building. Time progressed without meaning, the hours felt like minutes as I sat and waited with the police. Minutes felt like hours when things seemed to be happening. It was like a bad dream, the details having sensations of terror drifting from them. As I waited I experienced the outcome. My child was going to get murdered by a naked drunk guy with a knife while an army of police did nothing about it and I watched helplessly restrained by them. Everything I looked at convinced me that I was going to sit there until that happened. I felt sick in my soul and my painful stomach became my religion. Prayers felt like snipers without a clear shot. God couldn't hear us over Tyrell's blasphemies, anyway.

Tyrell Gruin had a knife and a whole classroom of hostages. I couldn't understand why the SWAT was just sitting there around the back, doing nothing. The police were just waiting, waiting for Tyrell. Apparently he was in charge.

I experienced a variety of dull and horrible feelings as I watched and waited; knowing my baby was in there with that psychotic social worker. I only glanced away when a news van or a police helicopter crossed my vision. When Tyrell showed himself he was surrounded by the class and carrying my child. His knife had blood on it and the teacher was missing. For some reason he had stripped himself completely naked. He was screaming something while he held the bloodied knife to my child's neck.

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I cannot describe the utter nightmare sensation of seeing something so impossibly evil. My eyes refused to tell my brain what they saw, like I couldn't actually see anything. Involuntarily the tension in my body, the terror I felt, had forced shut my eyes. I willed myself to look, sweating from the strain. I couldn't breathe, my chest felt like my skin was being pinched inside my ribs.

There were several police sharpshooters with the SWAT team but none of them had a clear shot. They would only shoot him if he slit my child's throat. He had already killed the teacher, at least. He was demanding a school bus for his getaway.

That is when Dreads trotted out of the grown shadows of the late afternoon. At first I did not recognize the smiling puppy. He had a strange look on his face, his grinning fangs contorted in a growling frown. Even his posture was different, the playfulness and gentleness was gone, replaced by the beast within's anger.

Everyone could see my dog behind Tyrell and there was a strange kind of silence and stillness that had fallen over the crowd. His echoing rant died away and he slowly followed everyone's gaze to the greater monster behind him. When he made eye contact with Dreads there came a bark; not an ordinary obnoxious bark of a dog saying nothing but "hey!". It was a singular battlecry as his teeth flew towards Tyrell and the word was "die!".

Dreads impacted with Tyrell teeth first. The man staggered and had to let go of my child. His knife clattered harmlessly on the ground. He tried to turn and get away from the huge dog. He was flailing and shouting in panic. Growling and snarling and the sound of his naked skin getting torn could be heard.

Tyrell had to drop Dreads's kid to defend himself against the fury of the dog and it still wasn't enough. The children fled from him while he cursed and called out for help. He kept hitting Dreads but had lost the knife to the ground. Dreads didn't stop until he had his teeth in Tyrell's throat and the cries for help had become pathetic red gurgling. He choked the man to death and then dropped him and left him there, a limp corpse. He wandered over to where me and my child were embracing on my wheelchair. I wiped the mess off of his chin and we hugged him with us.

I held my child close while the medics and police were all over us. One of the police told me that Dreads was a hero and that they were not going to see him taken away. I was debriefed that Tyrell had recently gotten fired for assaulting someone while working for DSHS. His drunken rampage had started early that morning when he crashed his car, robbed a convenience store at knife point and left a path of vandalism on his way to the school. My kid's teacher, Mrs. Driver, was taken to the hospital where she remained in critical condition all weekend. She later returned to teaching and with a companion animal similar in size and breed to Dreads.

The school's team is called the "K9s" after Dreads. I could feel that everything was going to be alright. The part of me that had watched my child die stayed there like a ghost. I held my living child and patted my very good dog.

"Let's go home." I said to my cuddled kid. Then to my best friend I added: "Good boy."